Ex-councillor to stand for Parliament

Graeme Currie

A FORMER Oldham councillor has been selected as a parliamentary candidate for the next general election.

Graeme Currie was a Labour councillor for Failsworth East between 1994 and 2003.

The Failsworth-raised social worker stepped down from the council when he moved to Shropshire for work.

His successor was Jim McMahon, then 23, who became one of the borough’s youngest councillors and is now council leader.

Mr Currie lives in Oswestry and has been selected as the Labour Party candidate for the North Shropshire constituency at next year’s General Election. In recent years he has been a Labour Party branch secretary in the area.

The current MP is Tory Cabinet Minister Owen Paterson, Secretary of State for the Environment, who had a majority of almost 16,000 at the 2010 election. Labour was third.